Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Are youtube videos cached to disk?

  • 1 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by WestEnd

more options

When I play a youtube video, are the buffered video sections cached or written anywhere to disk or is it just stored in RAM? Does this behavior depend on the "browser.cache.disk.enable" settings?

The Tor Project says that vanilla Firefox writes HTML5 videos to disk (apparently to the OS temporary folder, not the cache), even in private browsing mode, which from what I have read should have the disk cache disabled (source: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/#disk-avoidance). I feel that YouTube does not use the standard "video" HTML tag, so does this behavior extend to youtube?

I know that youtube videos used to be written to disk via Flash Player, but since youtube has switched to HTML5, are videos still buffered to disk?

If youtube videos are cached to disk, how do I find and delete them?

When I play a youtube video, are the buffered video sections cached or written anywhere to disk or is it just stored in RAM? Does this behavior depend on the "browser.cache.disk.enable" settings? The Tor Project says that vanilla Firefox writes HTML5 videos to disk (apparently to the OS temporary folder, not the cache), even in private browsing mode, which from what I have read should have the disk cache disabled (source: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/#disk-avoidance). I feel that YouTube does not use the standard "video" HTML tag, so does this behavior extend to youtube? I know that youtube videos used to be written to disk via Flash Player, but since youtube has switched to HTML5, are videos still buffered to disk? If youtube videos are cached to disk, how do I find and delete them?

Modified by x100

All Replies (1)

more options

You could also ask this of Youtube since the stream is coming form them as well. How tor project works that is up to how tor projects does their own FF has nothing to do with how they do their setup. Even if cached I doubt they stay there when your done watching them. Are you having some issue with youtube then you should contact them about it.